An army patrol killed seven suspected Shining Path rebels in a remote region of the southern highlands of Peru, the armed forces said Wednesday, according to AP. The «presumed» rebels were killed in a firefight Tuesday near the village of Putis, the military said in a communique. The Putis area is on the route used by drug traffickers to bring cocaine out of the Apurimac River valley, where large amounts of coca leaf, the raw material for the drug, are grown. There were no army casualties in the clash, the communique said. Shining Path rebels provide protection to drug smugglers who use backpacks and mules to bring cocaine over high mountains down to cities on the western slopes, avoiding highways. Most of the cocaine is smuggled out of Peru on ships once it reaches coastal cities. The Shining Path nearly brought Peru to its knees with a savage insurgency in the 1980s and early 1990s but faded as a threat to the government after the capture of its leader, Abimael Guzman, in 1992.
